Prospect’s Black
by Evenstar Phoenix
Summary: Haruhi visits her childhood home. A Haruhi and Kotoko fic.


Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran high host club.

**Prospect's Black: Too late it's gone it won't come back**

The shimmer of her dark hair as tendrils escaped the prongs of a clip. The sweet innocence of her face sharply contrasted with her haunted eyes. Her bare feet traced circles in the wet sand. All in all she is a mesmeric sight to anyone watching the young woman sitting by the rocky shore. The beach was far from the village and to her a sort of refuge from the acrid smells and harsh sounds of the stalls selling greasy food and cheap trinkets.

She had brought white lilies which she held limply at her side, hardly the way she should present them to a woman of her grace and dignity. Remembering the skills she learned as a host, she straightened her arm to hold them upright.

Tamaki had asked to accompany her here. After she initially turned him down he had gone so far as to send an overwritten letter formally requesting that they spend _"a lovely seaside vacation, basking in the glorious expanse that is mother nature, all the while cherishing every moment of father-daughter time while escaping the stresses of day-to-day life"_. Of course, she turned him down again this time explaining in greater detail the true nature of her trip, while wondering just what day-to-day stress he was faced with.

The boys in the host club were well intentioned, not doubt existed in her mind about that, but they simply did not understand her need for solitude. Tamaki in particular was driven almost to the point of madness and frenzy when faced with the idea of the host club not spending their vacation time together. Then again, Tamaki was driven to the point of madness and frenzy at nearly everything. Regardless of his often times overbearing actions, they all knew how much he cared for the other hosts and how much he treasured their time together.

But with these thoughts far from her mind, she stood and began walking the maze of garden pathways leading away from the shoreline. The path diverged away from the cobblestones, as she began to tunnel her way to through tall grasses, wary of the buzzing insects hidden between the stems.

Her face fell at her first glimpse of it over the crest if the small hill. Seemingly in that moment the flowers lacked their usual fragrance and the color of the earth had lost its usual vibrance. All of her senses seemed to have dulled as her heart broke.

The decayed cottage had lost its battle with the elements. The roof slanted forward and threatened to cave in from the weight of the vines, moss, and other organic litter. The wind and sand scored wooden door till nearly all the red paint had been sanded away. She walked around to the side of the small house. Nature had defaced the stone siding. Wind, sand, and salty water acted on the wall like an ancient palimpsest, covering it with grime, scrubbing it away, and then layering it once more with dirt and sand. The once carefully laid brickwork now had so many cracks that the wall took on the qualities of a grotesque mosaic.

Her mouth became taut and expression ugly as her formerly beautiful childhood home was now just a shadow of a memory. She presses her hand against the rough surface of the door and decides against trying to force it open. An echo of laughter, a gleam of an eye, a fragrant perfume all float in and out of her mind as she wanders back around the small house.

As twilight approaches the strong gusts of wind prompt her to fasten the last few buttons of her jacket; the warm comfort of open arms feel farther away than ever before.

She thought she heard a faint tinkling of the wind chimes, simple metal tubes her father had strung together one summer, hung on the porch at the back door. Her heart leapt; perhaps it was not all gone. She raced around to the porch and tried to stifle her disappointment to see that it too was covered in the same muck and no sign whatsoever of the wind chimes.

She walked to the front of the house toward the pathway that she had come from. As she turned her back to the first home she ever knew, she realized with a heavy heart what intelligent reasoning had told her all along. The past was gone.

She would return to the village and do what she came here to do: place the lilies at the family grave and pay her respects.

As she continued walking back she began to understand that to find what she was seeking, she would have to look to the future and to those with her right now as opposed to the past and those long gone.

Perhaps her ridiculously flamboyant senpai had it right all along; though she would be hard pressed to admit it to anyone, other than herself.

Fin.

XXX

AN:

Here's the deal. I thought I would try a dictionary story this time (aka arbilexicon). Basically it's like those assignments you got in elementary school where you were assigned a bunch of words and you have to make a story out of it.

I used these 25 words: Beautiful, brickwork, decayed, defaced, echo, haunted, intelligent, maze, mesmeric, overwritten, palimpsest, refuge, shimmer, smells, sounds, tubes, tunnel, ugly, buttons, cave, moss, organic, float, water, gleam

Gimme some credit, I wouldn't use a word like palimpsest otherwise. ;p

I decided to work with my Haruhi/ Kotoko obsession. Maybe I overdid it with the angst, but I'm glad I included another host club member for once.

I may have read the phrase "madness and frenzy" somewhere in relation to Tamaki before and for some reason it just stuck in my mind.

Enjoy! And PLEASE review.


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